Eensy Weensy Spider - A Bedtime Story

I quite fancied playing around with a bit of the myth and this is just an example of how a story can be told in so many different ways. In this case the story of how Lord Recluse came to be the man he now is. It also gave me a chance to write in a more simple style used for children’s books.

Obviously the story is not really a good one to tell any child before they go to sleep unless you are a particularly nasty parent.

Maybe not one to read if you don’t like spiders either.

Hope you all enjoy it and feedback, as very, is always welcome.

PDF version of the story – link

Incy Wincy spider climbing up the spout
Down came the rain and washed the spider out
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain
And Incy Wincy spider climbed up the spout again!


Megan settled in to her bed, moving Mimsy, her favourite rag doll, to the bedside table where she spent each night. She picked up the book she had got out for her mum to read and stared at the picture on the cover. One day , she thought, I’ll be a princess with my very own prince to look after me.

She was about to open up the book and try reading a few lines herself when she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. Looking up she saw the shape of a spider crawling across her ceiling. Panic caused her to freeze for a few seconds and then she found her voice.

“Mum!” she screamed. “Mum! There’s a spider on my roof.”

Her eyes refused to leave the large black thing. It had obviously heard her calling for her mum as it had stopped moving. Megan really hoped it didn’t decide to drop on to her bed. If it did that she would have to make a run for the door, or maybe throw the quilt over it. She glanced at the slightly open door.

“Mum!” she called again. Then louder, “Mum! Quick!”

There was the sound of footsteps on the landing and then the bedroom door opened wide, bright light making Megan squint for a moment.

“What’s the matter, hon?” her mother asked.

“Up there,” Megan pointed to the giant creature, looking up at it again.

“Oh, now, that’s only a tiny thing. Do you want me to get rid of it for you?”

“Please,” Megan nodded. “I don’t want it coming back again.”

Her mum stepped on to the bed and reached up to catch the spider in her upturned hand.

“Well I’m not going to kill it, just put it outside where it belongs,” she said as she walked over to the window.

“But, mum,” Megan appealed, “it could come back in again when I’m asleep.”

Her mum closed the window, brushed her hands together and sat down on the edge Megan’s bed.

“It won’t come back in to your room, dear, because we’ve been nice to it. Do you know why you shouldn’t kill spiders and why you should be nice to them?”

Megan shook her head.

“I’ll tell you the story of Stefan Richter then,” her mum said taking the book Megan had got ready and placing it on the bedside table next to Mimsy.

“Stefan was a little boy,” she began. “Not much older than you are now. He lived in a nice house with a nice family, in a part of New England not far from here. The thing was, though, Stefan liked to squash bugs. He’d squash them all the time. If he saw a fly he would get his dad’s newspaper and use it to chase the fly until he squished it. If he was playing in the garden he would find ants and hit them with little stones. Even ladybirds and dragon flies were on his list of bugs to get.

“One day, though, Stefan did a terrible thing. As he was going in for his tea he saw a little spider crawling across the front yard. Now the spider hadn’t done him any harm. It had spent its day catching flies and other insects that we humans don’t like, so really it had done much the same as Stefan. But to Stefan this didn’t matter, he just looked down at the little spider as it made its way across the concrete and he saw a bug that needed dealing with. So, down came his trainer and he stamped on the spider.

“When he lifted his foot up again the spider was there, flattened on the ground, and Stefan smiled to himself. He was pleased with what he had done. He went inside and had his dinner with his mum and dad and little sister.

“That night Stefan went to sleep thinking of new ways he could find and crush bugs. He had all summer off school and he wanted to fill the days with bug squashing.

“In the middle of the night Stefan was woken up by someone coughing. He opened his eyes and looked around. There was a small bit of light coming from his bedside clock and it shone on a little spider that was sitting in the middle of his bed.

“’Did you just wake me up?’ Stefan asked the spider.

“’Yes,’ the spider replied.

“’Why did you do that?’ Stefan asked. ‘I was quite happy sleeping.’

“’Because you have done something very bad,’ the spider told him. ‘Today you stamped on one of my friends and killed him.’

“’But it was only a spider, just like you,’ Stefan told the little creature. ‘Now leave me alone to sleep otherwise I will squash you as well.’

“’Are you not sorry about what you did?’ the spider asked, ignoring the threat Stefan had made.

“’No, of course not,’ replied Stefan. He was starting to get a bit annoyed at the spider now. ‘It was only a spider. I kill bugs all the time and a spider is just another bug.’

“’Are you going to kill any more spiders?’ asked the one sat on his covers. It sounded quite serious, but Stefan didn’t seem to notice.

“’Of course I am,’ Stefan said. ‘And I’m going to start with you if you don’t leave me alone. Now go away.’

“’I thought you might say that,’ the spider said. ‘You are a nasty boy Stefan Richter and you must be stopped. You will not squash any more of my kind again, for we are strong and full of magic.’

“’Yeah, right,’ Stefan said back to the thing. ‘There’s only the one of you and I’m a lot bigger. Now where’s my slipper.’ And he started to lean out of his bed to find it so that he could deal with the bothersome bug.

“But as he started to move he heard the little spider on his bed make a whistling sound and he turned to look what it was doing. What he saw made him stop and sit straight up in bed, for in through the open window (it was summer you see and his mum had left the window open a crack to let a breeze blow in) were coming lots of spiders. Some were big, some were small. Some were black and some were brown.

“Stefan couldn’t believe his eyes, for there were hundreds of them coming in. They turned the carpet black as they moved and they were all heading towards Stefan. Knowing that he was in trouble Stefan jumped up on to the bed and was about to run out the room when he saw that there were more spiders coming in through the gap at the bottom of the door. He looked up and the creatures were even on the ceiling. Stefan couldn’t get away from all those spiders and they swarmed all over him. He tried to shout for his mum and dad, but the spiders dropped on to his face and stuck his lips together with their web. Then they pulled him back down on to the bed and began to work their magic on him.

“It took them all night, but when they were finished they all left and Stefan just lay there on his bed scared that if he moved they would come back.

“In the morning his mum opened his door to tell him that she had made pancakes for breakfast. Stefan sat up in bed and started to tell her what had happened to him, but when she saw her son his mum let out a scream and ran out of the house.

“Stefan didn’t know why his mother had run away, and looked around the room for a spider that might have frightened her. It was then that he saw himself in the mirror and the sight of his own reflection made him scream as well. You see the creatures had stuck big black spider’s legs to his back that moved like extra arms, making Stefan look like a giant human spider.

“Of course Stefan couldn’t stay at home looking like that, so he went to find the spider island which is just off the coast of America near Paragon City. There he grew up to become one of the nastiest men in the world - Lord Recluse, The Master of Evil.

“All these years later Stefan is still out there on his island, and he talks to all the spiders around the world. So if you kill a spider he knows about it and he sends one of his spider henchmen to get you and take you away in the middle of the night. That’s why when you see a spider you should always be nice to it.”

I think this is great, verywell done LeighB!

If this was set in the past it could be like 'Gotham by Gaslight' - maybe entitled Paragon by Paraffin-Lamp.
An ElseWorld where a traumatized Stephan runs away to The Rogue Isles, grows up and starts Arachnos.

This was very easy to read and a well told story.

The simplised style was well suited for childrens book and you accomplish your aim here well. The vehicle you chose was very clever - as children I am sure we all remember being told cruel and totally unsuitable stories by parents who just want to make a point - yet because a parent is telling the story we accept them without question!

Factually it is inconsistent with how Lord Recluse got his powers but I assume you know that - here we have a mother who is not bothered about getting the facts right she simply wants to tell her daughter why it is wrong to kill spiders. From that point of view it is like all childrens stories - moralistic and slightly cruel.

You state that you wouldnt want to tell a child this, I disagree, most childrens stories are as gruesome as this (if not more so) and its no more frightening than say Hansel and Gretle or Little Red Riding Hood. Children will accept most things so long as the bad guy gets whats coming to him.

Hope you find my comments positive and helpful - that was the aim. if you have any questions please pm me.

Personally I think that'd be a great childrens story but I have a warped sense of the world anyway lol

A nice alternate to the birth of Recluse and a great mental image of the spiders invading his room to freak out any arachno(s)phobes out there

Thanks for the comments guys. Always much appreciated.

I did think about the Hans Christian Andersen type stories and that maybe this wasn’t as scary as I thought it might be for children.

I should have put in the link to the background notes [linky]. I do enjoy doing stuff set in CoX that’s just a bit different. I’ve not even considered doing a ‘normal’ hero/action story yet. I would like to come up with some more alternate history ones like this. Hopefully inspiration will strike. In the meantime I’ve been drafting up a few more short stories for CoH and will get those posted as and when.

Thanks again for reading.

Edit: Forgot the link. Silly me.